The Canon of Scripture - Part 1

Good evening and welcome to Sunday Night Bible Study with Pastor Josiah Shipley at Witton Baptist Church.

I always have fun doing these videos, I love being with you guys. I continue to come on here and share these videos and like these videos.

We don't get any funds or money from it, but it's just a way to spread the gospel even more. So we really enjoy doing it.

Keep in mind at Witton we have a whole slate of social media videos we do to help people some live, some pre -recorded.

Mondays at 10am time out with Pastor Ben. Tuesday nights

Bible Study with Pastor Jeff. Wednesday afternoons Hymn History with Brother Andrew, those are always fun.

Thursday night live WOW moment with Vicki and Mercedes, our women's ministers here at Witton.

Fridays are off day Saturday, we have question and answer at 2pm with yours truly. Those are live, you can come on and ask whatever question you want in the comment section,

I answer them. Sunday morning sermons with Pastor Jeff and then Sunday evening

Bible Studies like today. So make sure to tune in tomorrow at 10am for Pastor Ben's time out.

What we're starting today is called the Canon of Scripture, but really we're going into little issues of textual criticism and all types of little things like that.

So I want you guys to stay with me and this is a topic which there's a lot of different aspects about and I get really excited about it.

So I'm going to try to do this succinctly, try to go as slowly as I can, and try to help as many people as I can.

When I say the Canon of Scripture, it's one N, C -A -N -O -N, not C -A -N -N -O -N, that's the one that goes boom,

Canon of Scripture means the measuring rod or the rule by which you measure other standards.

So for example, one of the things we'll talk about today is why these books, why are these books included in the

Canon and not other books, okay? Like the Apocrypha of the Old Testament, or the

Gospel of Thomas, or the Gospel of Peter of the New Testament, that the History Channel will tell you are the lost books of the

Bible, things like that, silly things like that. And we're going to very clearly show why they're not considered inspired by the

Word of God. But before we do, let me just give you some general facts about the

Bible, and maybe you've never heard of things like this, and maybe some of these things to some of you will be obvious, to some of you these may be earth -shattering.

Keep in mind of whatever I'm about to say, I fully believe that this is the infallible, inerrant

Word of God, and that every word in it is Theodustos, that is

God -breathed. What we believe about the Bible as Christians, as Evangelical Christians, for the most part, is we believe that 2

Timothy 3 .16 says, That word, bereaved out by God, or some of your translations will say inspired by God, okay, it's

Theodustos. Thea meaning God, nu meaning breath, or Holy Spirit, if you will.

So it is bereaved out by God. If you put your hand over your mouth, you feel your breath hitting your hand.

Although we recognize there are 40 -something writers of the Bible, written over a period of 1 ,500 years, 1 ,550 years, hundreds of miles apart, we believe there's one author, and that's the

Holy Spirit, and that every word is bereaved out by God through the pens of men.

That's what we believe about the Bible. So that David, and Paul, and Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Peter can have their own writing styles, their own vocabulary, their own cultures and norms, and still every word is exactly what

God wanted it to be. He's so sovereign, he didn't robotically force

Peter to write this down. He used normal means of Peter's life to bring about the word that he wanted.

That's sovereignty. That's how powerful he is. Every word, not a jot or a tittle, you know, not one little part of it has been broken.

When we talk about the Bible, let me just tell you some facts. Maybe you've never heard of these before, but stay with me, okay?

Ladies and gentlemen, the Bible was not originally written in English. Sorry, King James -only folks, 1611 is not when the

Word of God was written. I'm sorry, that's just a historical fact. The Bible was originally written in the

Old Testament almost exclusively in Hebrew, and in the New Testament almost exclusively in Greek, okay?

Now, it is probable that Jesus may have spoken Aramaic, Hebrew -ish type mixing of the

Hebrew language, but the disciples wrote in Greek because the Roman world,

Greek was the empire language, if you want to think of it that way, so their letters had impacts because there was always someone who could read

Greek. So wherever you sent it to, there would be Greek readers there. A lot of people in that culture could speak two or three languages because they'd have their own cultural tribal language, but then the

Romans, you had to make sure that you could speak Greek when they wanted their tax money and when the Roman soldiers came and wanted to talk to you.

So, Greek was kind of the national language, but everyone had their tribal or cultural language, if you want to think of it that way.

So the Bible was originally written in those languages, and what's amazing is when Alexander the Great conquered the known world in the 300s

BC, he took with him the Greek language. So by the time Jesus and the apostles get there, the Old Testament has already been translated into Greek completely in its entirety for 200 years.

Everyone has access to the Old Testament in Greek, not just in Hebrew, in Greek. It's called the Septuagint.

There's a copy right here. It's called the Septuagint, right? There it is right there. It's a Greek translation of the Old Testament. Many times when the

New Testament writers quoted from the Old Testament, they quoted directly from the Septuagint instead of quoting from the Hebrew and translating it themselves into Greek.

Another thing to keep in mind, we don't have any of the original autographs of the apostles.

We don't have the piece of paper that Paul wrote on or the piece of paper that Peter wrote on.

And sometimes when I say that, people are like, oh my gosh, whoa. So how do we know what was really written? Guys, keep in mind, the original text of the

Word of God is the Word of God. This right here is a Bible, but this leather and this paper is not the

Word of God. Now, before you freak out, listen to me. The text, the words, but on the first day of the week at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared.

Those words are the Word of God. I don't care if it's written down. I don't care if it's typed up. I don't care if it's carved in a stone.

I don't care if it's spoken. I don't care if it's on a Facebook wall. It doesn't matter. Those are the words of God.

This right here in and of itself is not the Word of God. The words inside of it are the Word of God. Now, that may seem silly to you that I would even point that out.

But my point in saying that is this. We have the original text of the Word of God, even if we don't have the original pieces of papyri or codexes they were originally written on.

Does that make sense? I don't need to have the paper that Paul literally wrote on and held.

It's not more holy. It contains the very words of God. And we still have those words if we don't have that original paper.

Does that make sense? Guys, God's Word is not bound up in paper and ink. Okay? God's Word, the text, has been preserved.

Now, we use the manuscript, the text, those things to retrieve the original text, the original words of God.

But we don't have to have the piece of paper that Peter wrote on for it to be the original text.

Does that make sense? I hope I'm saying that in a way that makes sense. It'd be like the Declaration of Independence at the museum in the

Smithsonian. No, wait. Is that the Smithsonian or is that the Philadelphia? No.

Yeah, one of those. Sorry. If the Declaration of Independence burned up tomorrow, would we still know what the

Declaration of Independence said? The answer is yes. Because we have thousands upon tens of thousands of copies of it.

The New Testament is the same way. We don't have the original anymore. But we have thousands upon tens of thousands.

We have 25 ,000 handwritten copies of fragments or complete

New Testaments in the world. When I say manuscripts, that means handwritten. I'm not even talking about printed.

Everything before Johann Gutenberg of 1454, I think is when he invented the printing press. Everything before that was handwritten.

We have 25 ,000 in dozens of languages. Coptic, Syriac, Georgian, Gothic, all these things.

We have 5 ,700 in Greek. Guys, Tacitus, who's a

Roman historian in the first century, we have three manuscripts of what he wrote.

Three. Caesar's Gallic Wars, we have like 50. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, we have like 400, 500.

The New Testament, we have 5 ,700, far more than any work of antiquity.

If you want to doubt that we can't retrieve the original 5 ,700 copies, then you've got to doubt everything ever written before the printing press.

Because there's far more proof of the New Testament, what was really written through the hand copies, than there is of any other work of antiquity.

Everyone, even atheistic scholars, agree with that. So, we can recreate the original text.

It's not a problem. Just like if the Declaration of Independence burned up tomorrow, we still have the original text, even if it's not the original paper.

Now we know about that. We know the language it was written in, how it was formed. Keep in mind, in the

Old Testament, it was written over a period of 1 ,000 years. Moses wrote around 1450 to 1400

BC. The last books of the Old Testament, like Malachi, for example, may be in the 400s

BC, before Christ. So, it was written over 1 ,000 years. A lot of it was written not under duress.

Some of it was, like in captivity, but some of it was written in King David's palace, for example, and the scribes would copy the law, the books of Moses.

Well, the first roughly 300 years after Jesus, there was severe

Roman persecution of the church. Now, it only lasted 300 years, but that's 300 years, okay?

The New Testament was written in a very short period of time, say 50 years, 55 years, somewhere between 44

AD and late 90s up to 100 AD, is when John finished writing his stuff, yeah?

James and Galatians were probably the first books written, and then John's five books were the last ones.

Gospel of John, 1st, 2nd, 3rd John, and Revelation in the 80s, 90s, and up to 100

AD. Well, if none of those first 10 to 20 emperors in that time, there was some pretty severe

Christian persecution, some worse than others, and if you found the sacred scriptures, if the Romans found them, they burned them and killed you.

Okay? So, a lot of martyrs in that time. It is amazing that we have that many copies, because people risked their lives to preserve it, even though they tried to destroy it.

What's amazing about the persecution of the early church and what history has shown us is the more you try to persecute

God's church, the more it spreads. See, the Romans built roads, right? And made everyone speak

Greek, going back to Alexander the Great. So that, when persecution hit, the followers of Christ took the gospel with them in a language that everyone could read, everyone could understand, and used the roads to take it to different parts of the

Roman Empire. Pretty cool, right? God is sovereign. Okay, so,

Josiah, now I understand how he got the Bible and we can trust that, but how do we trust when we have the right books?

Okay, let's go through just a few examples of this. First off, you have the Old Testament Apocrypha, as some call it.

Now, I don't mean to be mean, I just want to be honest with you guys. Excuse me. Excuse me.

I just want to be honest with you guys. The Old Testament Apocrypha are generally accepted by most

Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox and other denominations and religions and sorts, but most

Protestant churches, you won't find them. You'll find the 39 books of the Old Testament. That are in the

Masoretic text, the Hebrew canon, and there's a lot of reasons why, but let me just make a comment.

Guys, when you come upon these books, there are wrong teachings in them, false teachings that contradict the word of God, but they're just books and we can still learn from them even if they're doctrinally false.

It's not like they're demonic and if you open one up, it's going to be like the return of the money and you're going to be cursed.

No, I mean, I have some of them in this room right now. They're just books, but we can tell that they are not inspired.

First off, many of them, especially the New Testament Apocrypha are clearly not written by the person that said they wrote it.

Like the Gospel of Peter. We have three partial Greek fragments of manuscripts of it and they don't date early.

They date after Peter died. Things like that. Um, let's take one of the

Apocryphal books of the Old Testament that is included in the Roman Catholic canon. Let's take Judith.

All right, well, Judith, the book of Judith starts out with, you know, Nebuchadnezzar and it says that he's king of Assyria and reigns in Nineveh.

What's the problem with that, guys? Well, we know from history included in the

Bible. Remember, there's not secular history and church history. There's just history. It's God's history. That Nebuchadnezzar was king of Babylon who took over Assyria and he did not reign in Nineveh.

Okay, well, there's a known historical fact, a historical, a known historical problem, a known historical fiction at the beginning of Judith, and it contradicts the book of Daniel and it contradicts, you know, um, these things.

We know it's false. Well, we believe the Bible's an error. It's not false. There's no errors in it.

There's no contradictions. By the way, if you have what you consider to be a contradiction of the Bible, I don't mean to be arrogant.

Send it to me publicly. Show me on the question and answer. Put it in these comments. I'm not afraid because we often find that sometimes when people post questions and Christians are scared that they question it, they just say, get defensive and say, well, you just have to trust it.

I love answering those type of questions. I love it. I love researching. And there's always an answer because I trust

God. Okay, I'm not afraid to take on things that may make me question things.

Guys, there's a difference between questioning and a lack of faith.

It is not a lack of faith to have questions, guys. When you read the Bible, you should question it.

And what I mean by that is not doubt it, but you should have questions. There's no way, unless you are God, that you can read this whole thing and never have a question.

There's nothing wrong with having questions, guys. That is going to make you have a very frustrated spiritual life if you think you're not allowed to have questions.

You're supposed to have questions. And then search the scriptures and find the answers. That's what's fun about sanctification.

Do not feel bad if you have questions. Ask them. If you have one of those apparent contradictions. I like going on atheist websites like 100

Contradictions in the Bible and just start reading and answering. Some of them are very silly and petty and very easy to answer.

It takes no research at all. It's so obvious. Some of them are, you know what? That's a good one. Let me read about it. Oh, okay.

That makes sense. Okay, like why would John mention this that Mark didn't? Stuff like that.

Or one of my favorites, how did God create white if he didn't create the sun until the third day?

The fourth day. Stuff like that. I love answering those type questions. Bring them on.

I love it. And it's not because I'm a pastor. I've been a pastor for like six months. Not because I'm a pastor.

It's not because I'm more holy. It's not because I am super smart. I'm none of those things. Because I trust

God. And I enjoy learning more and more about it. All right, enough about that.

So, first and second Maccabees. We can learn a lot from first and second Maccabees.

It's in the Roman Catholic canon of the Old Testament. We can learn a lot about history. A lot about the

Sadducees and the Pharisees that show up in the New Testament. But it's not the inspired word of God. Doesn't mean it's satanic or demonic.

It just means it's not the word of God. Those books err. They have mistakes in them.

God's word doesn't. Okay. And Judith is just one example of that. And I can't remember the exact date.

But Judith has the temple being rebuilt before it was ever destroyed. It was destroyed in 586 by Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon.

Oh, it was laid siege to. And I think it's Judith has it being rebuilt in like 637.

Which historically is 50 years before it was ever destroyed. Right. If you're a Roman Catholic or you know someone.

I'm not making fun of anybody. I'm simply trying to show you the truth of God's word. Okay. Additionally, let me give you some historical examples.

Josephus and in the first century and later Athanasius in the fourth century.

Both agree that the 39 books of the

Protestant Old Testament has always been considered the only divine scriptures in the word of God to the

Jews. Now, yes, there were some early church fathers that later accepted the Apocrypha. That's true.

I'm not going to hide that from you. That's true. But Josephus and Athanasius both attest that the early

Jews only accepted those 39 books as divinely inspired. Everyone hear that? Divinely inspired.

And if you were to Google it right now. It will tell you that there were 22 or 24 books in the

Hebrew canon. The Masoretic or 22 or 24 is always the number. And before you freak out like,

Oh my goodness, we have 39. What are all these lost books? Now, if you just keep reading, it's because they counted all the minor

Prophets. Hosea, Joel, Amos, Abodai, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah. I miscounted.

Hosea, Joel, Amos, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. You know what

I'm talking about. Those 12. That's one. That's one.

They counted all those as one. Jeremiah and Lamentations are often counted together as one. 1st and 2nd

Kings are counted as one. 1st and 2nd Samuel, which is often called 3rd and 4th Kings, counted as one. Ezra and Nehemiah are counted as one.

When you get those, you get 22 or 24, depending on if you separate Ezra and Nehemiah and you separate

Jeremiah and Lamentations. Okay, does that make sense? That's where we get the number 22 and 24 books of the

Old Testament. But if you separate them out like we tend to do, Hosea, Joel, Amos, all their individual books, you get 39.

But it's the same material. It's the same books. It's the same words. The fact that some of them are binded together in a book doesn't bother me.

If you bind all the minor prophets, that's fine. Doesn't bother me a bit. Shouldn't bother you. So even though if you were to Google right now the

Hebrew canon or the Masoretic text or what did Josephus and Athanasius view as the

Old Testament canon, it's going to say 22 or 24 books, but it's the same 39 we have. They just count them differently.

The exact same words. The exact same words. Okay, everyone good there?

So by the time of Jesus and the Apostles, Josephus tells us that the

Roman Catholic Apocrypha, those books, those extra, if you want to think of it this way, seven or eight books and a few chapters in Daniel and Esther, were not recognized as divine by early

Jews. Furthermore, this is the part that we need to really focus in on. When you read the

New Testament, guys, let me really encourage you on this. If you ever see the words, Thus saith the

Lord, or as it is written, or according to the scriptures, you need to stop and realize that whatever you're about to read is a direct quote from the

Old Testament because it happens a lot in the New Testament. Almost every book does it. Sometimes multiple times in the same chapters.

Okay, Romans 3, Romans 8, Romans 9, Romans 10. The book of Hebrews is a plagiarism of the

Old Testament if you want to think of it that way. Jesus and Matthew, my goodness, quotes the Old Testament nonstop.

Guys, if you see those words, as it is written, Thus saith the Lord, according to the scriptures, that New Testament author is letting you know this is the word of God, unquote.

They say it about a lot of books in the Old Testament. You know what books they never say it about? Tobit, Judith, 1st and 2nd

Matthew, 1st and 2nd Edress, Sirach, Baruch. They never say it about the

Apocrypha, the Roman Catholic Deuterocanonical books if you want to think of it that way.

So if Jesus and the apostles did not view them as divine scripture, neither should we. But if they did view

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1st, 2nd, all the way down through 39, then so should we.

That's pretty straightforward. Let me give you one example of that. Matthew 22,

Matthew 22, verse 29, Matthew 22, 29.

But Jesus answered them, now he's speaking to the Sadducees, who do not believe in a resurrection of the dead, but are trying to trap

Jesus by asking him a question about the resurrection. He says this.

You are wrong because you don't know the scriptures or the power of God. I think we could reword that.

You're wrong because you don't know the scriptures. Therefore, you don't know the power of God. Verse 30, for in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given the marriage, but are like the angels in heaven.

And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God?

I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, or the God of Jacob. He's not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. Now, your

Bible should recognize in a little footnote or something that verse 32 is a quote from the

Old Testament. Specifically, I think it's Exodus chapter 3. Yeah, Exodus 3.

I want you to think about this. I told you Moses wrote the book of Exodus between 1450 and 1410

B .C., almost 1500 years before Jesus said this in, let's say, 29

A .D. I want you to listen again. Jesus is looking at a people who said they knew the

Old Testament and memorized it. And 1500 years later, in a different area of the world, he looks at them and says, have you not read what was spoken to you by God?

And it's holding them accountable to something that God told Moses 1500 years earlier in a different land.

Guys, when you read the book of Philippians or Matthew or Mark, even though it was written 2000 years ago in a different land, thousands of miles away, it's

God speaking to you now. That's what we mean when we say the word of God. We mean one author of the

Holy Spirit through 40 something writers of men. Jesus is holding them accountable to something written 1500 years earlier that they know it and apply it in their lives today.

That was Jesus and the apostles view of the word of God. You can go on.

You can go read Luke 22, excuse me, Luke 24, where it speaks of Jesus saying the scriptures speak of me.

And then he defines what he means by scriptures. The law of Moses, the prophets, the

Psalms, Jesus recognized and the apostles that the Old Testament was the word of God.

And they never give that credence or that value to the apocryphal books of the Old Testament.

All right, let's stop there. And we're going to continue with some of the

New Testament stuff next week. So we're going to talk about the lost Gospels of the New Testament, Gospel of Thomas and Gospel of Peter.

And I'm going to show you how they're known frauds, how they're Gnostics and how they're not part of the word of God. I hope this is helpful.

Hope this isn't too much for you. And I will slow down as much as I need to, because this is a very important topic that we should take seriously.

Please, please share this video in the comments. Ask questions. Don't be afraid to ask questions.

They're not stupid. Ask them. Ask them and I will answer them. Don't live on in not knowing.

OK? Love you guys very much. This has been Sunday Night Bible Study with Pastor Josiah Shibley of Wynton Baptist Church.

Guys, forget all the pomp and all. I love doing this and I love you guys. Help me help you however